I know I’m being a little dated here, but I wanted to briefly address this Sarah Palin/Paul Revere business. For anyone unfamiliar with the story, here’s the incriminating video:

Here, Palin indicates, while on a stop in Boston no less, that Paul Revere rode through town to

warn the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding through town (bizarre change in pitch) to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.

She later defended her comments on FOX News (appropriately, the only news channel to which she will grant interviews) with this retort to critics:

I know my American history … part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there, that, ‘Hey, you’re not going to succeed. You’re not going to take American arms. You are not going to beat our own well-armed persons, individual private militia that we have.’ He did warn the British.”

Sure. She knows her history. After more than one nudging by Glenn Beck (Glenn Beck no less!), she couldn’t name one of the Founding Fathers outside of George Washington and said that all of them were her favorite (I doubt she would have agreed much with Thomas Jefferson). She also gave the same ludicrously broad answer (“All of them”) when Katie Couric, again more than once, asked her to name just one newspaper or magazine that she regularly consulted. Further, she couldn’t name one Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade with which she disagreed:

Back to Revere, here is a letter written by the rider himself to Jeremy Belknap. In it, Revere tells of how he was trying evade the British while warning the colonists of their movements. Conspicuously absent from the letter is any mention of him ringing bells or firing shots to warn the households, as per Palin’s account. He was part of a committee with

the purpose of watching the Movements of the British Soldiers, and gaining every intelegence of the movements of the Tories. We held our meetings at the Green-Dragon Tavern. We were so carefull that our meetings should be kept Secret; that every time we met, every person swore upon the Bible, that they would not discover any of our transactions …

Later in the letter, he recalled how he narrowly escaped some British soldiers but was eventually captured. He then told the British how 500 Americans were on the way after he had warned the colonists of British actions. This L.A. Times article asks whether this is what Palin meant:

So was Revere warning the British that he had warned the Colonists? Is that what the prospective presidential candidate meant? Was Revere serving notice (at gunpoint)?

But Palin was clearing talking about Revere’s ride in the above quote from the FOX News interview (“part of his ride was to warn the British”), not whatever Revere said after being captured. Some Palin supporters have went so far as to erroneously modify Paul Revere’s Wikipedia entry to more closely reflect Palin’s cartoon-like account. Palin’s followers will seemingly do anything to make sure their star stays above board intellectually. But it’s really too late for that. She has disgraced herself repeatedly, and I hope that a majority of Americans understand the kind intellectual absentee that she is if she becomes an official candidate for president.

Previously, I wrote that Stephen Colbert might be the instigator of some sort of upcoming “Restoring Truthiness” rally to counteract Glenn Beck’s own “Restoring Honor” rally on Aug. 28, but as it turns out, Jon Stewart made the announcement Sept. 16 that The Daily Show staff (and most likely Colbert with him) are organizing an actual rally on Oct. 30 at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Here is a link to the official site. And here is the video:

Correction: Colbert is, indeed, planning his own rally, and it’s called the March to Keep Fear Alive rally, and it will be held the same day in Washington. Here’s the announcement:

I thought this website post offered an intriguing look at the phenomenon known as The Overton Window, and no, this is not in reference to Glenn Beck’s attempt at fiction.

Here is the image:

And here is the idea:

- There is, or there should be, a constant tug-of-war on the edges of the Overton Window on any issue.

- There is a place for everyone and anyone along the Left side of the rope, as long as we’re all pulling in the same general direction.

- The current location of the Overton Window is so far to the right of any objective political spectrum, that what are now considered Extreme Left Positions are really not extreme at all.⁽⁽¹⁾⁾

The strategy of the Tea Party, right-wing crowd is this: alter what is perceived as conservative, and move that a bit to the right, rinse and repeat. Thus, proponents can then alter or blunt what is seen as a far-right stance, and make that far-right stance look as if it was more moderate, which, in turn, ever moves the arrow farther to the right, ad nauseam. If I have described the idea correctly, what we have is an ideology ever moving toward the right, while acceptance by the public, in tow, moves toward the right as well (it can obviously work to the left as well). As the above-referenced site notes, the right have mastered this strategy quite well, while the left has not, or at least not to the same degree. Or, according to the website:

Eliminationist Right-Wing Blogs and Fox News screechers may look like clowns, but that is their function. To stretch the Window so far to the Right that anything short of nuking the Middle East seems acceptable.

Thus, Beck. He, indeed, serves a unique, almost subversive, subconscious political purpose, just none that helps this country move forward.

1. http://www.correntewire.com/the_overton_window_illustrated [↩]

Now, thanks to this article from The Daily Beast‘s Reihan Salam, we have comparisons of Glenn Beck to Malcolm X? In the words of Sheila Broflovski from South Park: what? What? WHAT?

That’s, according to Salam, Beck is a white version of X. Here’s Salam:

Whereas Malcom X embraced militant black separatism, Beck marries a stridently emotional style with political views that wouldn’t have been out of place at a 1950s Elks Lodge event. But like Malcolm X, Beck terrifies mainstream liberals, who see something sinister in his inexplicable ways. And just as Malcolm X mellowed in his old age, embracing a more traditional interpretation of Islam shortly before his death, Beck seems to be self-consciously moving past the politicized anger that defined his program for much of the past two years towards a heavy emphasis on spiritual uplift for his people.

I think this is a fairly ridiculous claim (See title). For one, as Salam claims, if Beck is attempting to enact some sort of spiritual awakening, he would be no different than the throngs of fervently religious — that’s not to mean terribly moral — politicians and evangelicals since the days of the Moral Majority and later, the Christian Coalition.

Second, Salam claims that Beck’s audience is mostly old and white. While that is true to some degree, it’s been fairly well-established that a number of black people follow the Tea Party’s credo, as well as quite intelligent young white people. Here’s some data from Gallup.

Also, Malcolm X’s followers, so far as I’m aware, were young black militants.

Salam also says:

Instead of accepting or embracing this transformation, a large and growing number of white Americans are, knowingly or otherwise, taking a page from minority protest movements of the past by asserting themselves and demanding recognition from political and cultural elites. Many on the left find this sense of anger and alienation risible, seeing in this movement of “are-nots,” as opposed to “have-nots,” a class of ignoramuses duped by Fox News into acting against their supposed economic interests.

Yet it seems more plausible that Fox News is following its audience rather than leading it — that this anger and alienation has existed for years, and has only now found a decidedly unconventional tribune in the form of Glenn Beck. Though this is a class with economic grievances, it seems more concerned with psychic injuries — with a profound sense of disempowerment in the face of centralized political power.

It is true that FOX News is following its audience rather than the other way around, for that’s what it means to be populist. And if Beck is anything, he’s a populist. Solutions to complex problems, as President Obama well knew prior to taking office, but well understood after taking the oath, are rarely popular, and more times than not, decidedly unpopular. And we can, I think, be thankful that within the framework of our free, democratic society, that some politicians have the guts (And I don’t exclude George W. Bush in some cases) to do that which isn’t necessarily popular for the common good. For the general public, more often than not, neither knows what it wants or what is best. It’s quite easy for Beck to lap at the trough of the popular movement of the day, one he helped create, but he’s no Malcolm X or Martin Luther King Jr., or any other transcendent leader. He’s a charismatic, very successful capitalist. That’s about it.

Credit: Kevin Wolf/AP (left); Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post (right)

So, should we reclaim the dream or restore honor?

As it turns out, it depends on who you talk to. Whichever ambiguous path you choose, it’s sure to curry favor with either the Rev. Al Sharpton, who led an event today to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic March on Washington in 1964, or Glenn Beck, and we all know his reputation. As it happens, Beck, the presiding FOX News lunatic who was holding his “Reclaim the Dream” rally in Washington on the same weekend, a gathering that he said was not, necessarily, planned, to coincide with King’s famous march and speech. Sure.

Here’s how The Washington Post has framed it:

On the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, steps away from where it was delivered, Sarah Palin and other speakers at Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally staked a claim to King’s legacy and to that of the Founding Fathers. They urged a crowd that stretched to the Washington Monument to concentrate on the nation’s accomplishments rather than on its psychological scars.

“Something that is beyond man is happening,” Beck said from the base of the Lincoln Memorial. “America today begins to turn back to God.”

The event was billed as “nonpolitical,” and Beck steered clear of the partisan commentary that has made him a hero to many conservatives and a nemesis to many on the left. But political overtones were unmistakable, and the rally drew a large crowd – including many who said they were new to activism – that was energized and motivated to act.

The effort by Beck and Palin to lay claim to the mantle of the civil rights movement drew protests from the Rev. Al Sharpton and others who marched in a separate and much smaller event, to the National Mall from Dunbar High School in Northwest Washington, to commemorate King’s speech 47 years ago.

“The ‘March on Washington’ changed America,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said at the Sharpton rally, referring to King’s speech. “Our country reached to overcome the low points of our racial history. Glenn Beck’s march will change nothing.” ((http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/28/AR2010082801106.html))

Not only will it not change anything, at least not for the good of the country, it will further splinter America. Beck, in all his civil rights fake-profundity, forgets that the tax cuts that he so trumpets nearly every day on his TV show will hurt many Americans who are the very people he claims to so embrace in the rally: low- to middle-income Americans.

Of course, there’s much over-excited banter from the other side as well. Here is Avis Jones DeWeever, executive director of the National Council of Negro Women:

Don’t let anyone tell you that they have the right to take their country back. It’s our country, too. We will reclaim the dream. It was ours from the beginning.

It is, indeed, black folks’ nation as well, but DeWeever, I think, misunderstands the point the Tea Party crowd, Beck, Palin and others have been attempting to make all along. They aren’t attempting to take the country back from black people or any race (That would be a perversion of the original intent), but from what they refer to as the liberal movement. Now, to me, the word “liberal” is a meaningless term. Even so, the point on Beck’s part is a political one, not a racial one.

And now, let me turn to numbers.

The Washington Post reported that thousands had descended on Washington for the Beck event, while Beck himself estimated that between 300,000-500,000 had attended the event. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), talking to a crowd after the Beck event had this to say:

We’re not going to let anyone get away with saying there were less than a million here today – because we were witnesses.

I find her use of the words “We were witnesses,” interesting. The numbers at the conservative event balloon from 300,000 to 500,000 then to a million? And yes, because we were witnesses, a million turned out to Washington to rail against the government. And because “we” (the gospel writers) were witnesses to the event, Christ performed miracles, raised Lazarus from the dead, exorcised demons and appeared before the disciples after death, and hundreds or maybe thousands were “witnesses” to UFO sightings or abductions and others were “witnesses” to paranormal activity and myriad other happenings that transcend the laws of nature. To simply establish that a person was a witness to a certain event doesn’t make the said event true. It makes the claimant either trustworthy, misunderstood, deceitful or, most plainly, wrong.

As it happens, the actual March on Washington likely consisted of between 200,000-300,000 people without any gross, and in Bachmann’s case, terribly gross, number-fudging.

Here is King’s monumental speech on that monumental day:

OK! So, just on principle, I’m forced to immediately retract a former statement, in which I said I quite enjoyed Ben Stein’s movie, “Expelled,” after listening to a meager 45 seconds of a Glenn Beck segment in which Stein himself, who, if anyone has actually followed the man, knows that Stein is Beck’s god on the topic of intellect — Or not, since Beck has somehow managed to build an entire empire on ranting and weeping — Stein actually said with, and I could find no hint of mocking, that he was

very stupid compared with you (Beck).

Beck laughs and says,

Yeah, right.

Stein:

I am.

And this short introductory dialogue took place in all seriousness on Stein’s part from what I can observe from the following video:

Cheering so long that they can’t get the other time slot into the theaters? Of course they cheer. People thirst to have their opinions and beliefs, however defunct they may be by scientific or historic reality, enforced. Stein provides that for some folks. Beck provides that for still others. FOX News provides that for millions without a single daily second of independent thought and hours of unlearned, fear-splashed and irrational rhetoric.

Thanks to the Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin crowd and the latter’s “reload” mentality on the health care debate and other anti-government issues, who have been rousing the rabble for at least a year-plus now,

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from Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz.

and the following related story from ABC News:

One protester who didn’t want to give his name was walking around with a rifle – in full view.

One of the parishioners who attended Sunday night services at the Faithful Word Baptist Church was Christopher Broughton.

“I actually moved to the area because this church was preaching the message I believe in,” said Broughton.Broughton had an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle outside President Barack Obama’s speech to the VFW at the Phoenix Convention Center earlier this month.

The night before the speech, on August 16th, Broughton listened to Anderson’s “Why I hate Barack Obama” sermon. “I concur, I think we’d be better off if God would send (Obama) where he’s going now instead of later,” said Broughton. “(Obama) is destroying our country.”

Add to this fellows like Wiley Drake, who, on the authority of Psalms 109 and 149, and elsewhere I’m sure, is currently praying for the deaths of Barack Obama and the 219 members of Congress who voted for the health reform bill, which is called imprecatory praying. We have the likes of radio hosts, politicians with books and television shows to promote and others to thank for raising the level of this debate to irrational heights. Indeed, when the ability to reason and think logically fails us, emotion is all that’s left, and never more in recent memory, has that fact played out.

Case in point: here is an entertaining, insofar as it is also revolting, exchange between FOX News’ Alan Colmes and Drake:

Says Drake:

The Bible says we’re to execute vengeance upon the heathen and punishment upon the people, and we’re to bind their kings. Now, we don’t have kings anymore, we have Congressmen, senators and presidents, but we’re to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron, and we’re to execute upon them the judgment that was written, and that is the honor of all the saints according to Psalms 149.

Hmm. Sounds like language one may find in another book that also has set back humanity for centuries. Of course, Drake not only gets the historical context of this passage wrong, but the spiritual context as well, if there is one at all. The Psalms are about the localized relationship between the Israelites and the deity they supposedly worshipped, and unless one wants to read the latter part of this chapter as looking forward to the second coming and ultimate judgment — I think that would be reading far too much into it — Drake is drastically offbase, and Colmes easily uncovers his failed logic.

If anyone needs tangible proof about what I’ve said for quite some time on where the current wave of frenzied and irrational rhetoric might lead us, here it is:

Associated Press Writers= DETROIT (AP) — Nine alleged members of a Christian militia group that was girding for battle with the Antichrist were charged Monday with plotting to kill a police officer and slaughter scores more by bombing the funeral — all in hopes of touching off an uprising against the U.S. government.

…

The arrests have dealt “a severe blow to a dangerous organization that today stands accused of conspiring to levy war against the United States,” Attorney General Eric Holder said.

Authorities said the arrests underscored the dangers of homegrown right-wing extremism of the sort seen in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.

…

David Brian Stone, 44, of Clayton, Mich., and one of his sons were identified as the ringleaders of the group. Stone, who was known as “Captain Hutaree,” organized the group in paramilitary fashion and members were assigned secret names, prosecutors said. Ranks ranged from “radoks” to “gunners,” according to the group’s Web site.

“It started out as a Christian thing,” Stone’s ex-wife, Donna Stone, told The Associated Press. “You go to church. You pray. You take care of your family. I think David started to take it a little too far.”

And this was “Christian” right-wing outfit, no less.

Indeed, Frank Rich with The New York Times recently touched on some of this “rage,” in describing the heated fervor over this politically moderate, Mitt Romney clone of a health care bill:

Yet it’s this bill that inspired G.O.P. congressmen on the House floor to egg on disruptive protesters even as they were being evicted from the gallery by the Capitol Police last Sunday. It’s this bill that prompted a congressman to shout “baby killer” at Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortion Democrat. It’s this bill that drove a demonstrator to spit on Emanuel Cleaver, a black representative from Missouri. And it’s this “middle-of-the-road” bill, as Obama accurately calls it, that has incited an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from “Kill the bill!” to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to “reload.” At least four of the House members hit with death threats or vandalism are among the 20 political targets Palin marks with rifle crosshairs on a map on her Facebook page.

All the while, he correctly notes that folks previously cried foul about “socialism” regarding other sweeping overhauls, but

there was nothing like this. To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both laws passed by similar majorities in Congress; the Civil Rights Act received even more votes in the Senate (73) than Medicare (70). But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.

The apocalyptic predictions then, like those about health care now, were all framed in constitutional pieties, of course. Barry Goldwater, running for president in ’64, drew on the counsel of two young legal allies, William Rehnquist and Robert Bork, to characterize the bill as a “threat to the very essence of our basic system” and a “usurpation” of states’ rights that “would force you to admit drunks, a known murderer or an insane person into your place of business.” Richard Russell, the segregationist Democratic senator from Georgia, said the bill “would destroy the free enterprise system.” David Lawrence, a widely syndicated conservative columnist, bemoaned the establishment of “a federal dictatorship.” Meanwhile, three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.

That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since …

Here’s another look from The Atlantic: Anti-Government Unrest and American Vigilantism.

I’m sure it appeared to be an ingenious progression of “F” words (“Faith * Family * Freedom”), but it is astounding to me that would-be politicians can paint mere words such as the local endorsement sign to the right (Taken in Westminster, S.C.), and folks, not knowing if the said candidate has a functioning brain or not, will vote for such candidates without knowing anything else about them.

Credit: Me

As a political exercise, I’ve got an idea. I think I will run on a “Theocracy * Domestic violence * Tyranny platform.” How do readers think that will fare? Think I will get some votes? No?!? How about the Faith * Hope * Charity platform. Surely, that one will be money.

The vote’s obviously out, but I’m willing to bet my boots that Richard Cash, who, by the way, has the endorsement of the America’s Independent Party of SC and the Tea Party of the Lakelands, will get lots of votes just based on this sign. The latter party, if I may add, has a global warning hoax section on its Web site, which tells you all you need to know about Cash and the Tea Party of the Lakelands.

That said, maybe we can set some guidelines for being a successful fringe candidate:

• First, get yourself an easy to pronounce, all-American name. Preferably three syllables or less.
• Second, and this should be a no-brainer: Drape your political message in the red, white and blue. You should include plenty of stars (nothing says “America” like objects from outerspace. We own space, fools!) and possibly add as many pictures and/or quotes from the Founders as possible, including Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin and John Jay. The particular Founder’s stance on more government or less doesn’t really matter. Your potential constituents won’t know the difference. Just uttering the Founders’ names will get you tons of brownie points!
• Third, and finally,  use words like faith, family, freedom, Democracy, Jesus and God as many times as possible, even though they might not make sense in context. They’ll never know the difference, and the seat is yours!

Moreover, what does “freedom” have to do with anything? Is Cash saying he is going to revisit the matter, in support, of course, if he gets elected? Didn’t we settle all that in 1776 when we officially broke free from British rule and again in 1865 when we broke blacks free from slavery’s rule?

This is like the Boston tea party for people that decided, let’s say, I don’t know, two and a half months ago, that they didn’t want to pay taxes anymore. The tea part is just a metaphor [on screen: a Fox News reporter pointing to boxes at one of the tea parties containing a million tea bags]. Let me get this straight. To protest wasteful spending, you bought a million tea bags. Are you protesting taxes or irony? — Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

A friend asked a couple days ago whether I was still writing about the Tea Party some, and I said I hadn’t in awhile, but hey I’m always happy to pop the cork now and then.

I think this pretty well sums up what is happening in conservative/libertarian/Constitutionalist circles around the country:

Credit: 2009 Creators Syndicate

CNN recently released a poll highlighting demographics among Tea Party supporters, the results of which were by and large not surprising. Here’s a TPM story about it and the basics:

• 80% are white (with 8% not responding to the question)
• 60% are male
• 40% are college graduates
• Over a third make $75,000 or more
• 50% live in rural areas
• 77% label themselves conservative
• 96% are Republican-Independent
• 87% say they will vote Republican for U.S. House

What is slightly surprising, but not shockingly so, is that 40 percent of those polled were college graduates. Now, I didn’t expect them all to be illiterate yokels — I’ve debated with a number of folks over a reteaparty.com, and many aren’t dim bulbs by any stretch (They also don’t like the Tea Bagger label) — but I did think the number would be more in the 30 percent range. Still, 60 percent aren’t college graduates, so that says something.

Also not surprising is the fact that 66 percent of Tea Party supporters made more than $50,000 per year, while only 42 percent made that much across all people who were polled.

Of course, the rise of the movement itself is not surprising, as we have a progressive president who has taken drastic measures — some experts say not drastic enough — to attempt to right the economic ship. It has risen despite the fact that Obama has stated nearly until he’s blue in the face, that any tax increases would not affect people making less than $250,000. It has risen on the tailwinds of ridiculous charges of Nazism, socialism, fascism or Communism, terms often used interchangeably for some reason, to describe the same person or his policies by folks like Mark Levin, Michael Savage and others who often squelch any potentially meaningful political discourse into name-calling and arguments that break no new ground and just echo the tired arguments of all the others.

All of this to make the ultimate case, as I understand it, that America should get back to the Constitution and the grand ideals of the Founders. While that’s a sexy notion and helps sell books, one problem exists with that. Readers of the Constitution or “Paradise Lost” or “War and Peace” can’t drop their authors into the 21st-century and make assumptions about what they might think on topics of the day. The Founders lived in a different America, and it’s an America that will never exist again. It was a more brutal time, a much larger country, and we were under the heel of the British. The Founders really didn’t have representation in Parliament; we have representation, whether we agree with those representing or not. The Founders were not making any claims against big government; they were fighting for the right of self-government itself.

Proponents of larger government intervention versus less did exist then as now, most notably from the Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans, and some of them would be shocked at how big our government has become, but even the most conservative among them understood that the country would change with the times, and thus they had enough foresight to know the Constitution would need amending. The claim that all the Founders, or even most of them, were ultra conservative or libertarian has no basis. They did pen the bits about separation of church and state, free speech, freedom of the press, and religion, after all.

The only argument of the Tea Party that is even halfway analogous would be arguments against upped taxes. But obviously, while taxes was one grievance against Britain in the colonies, they it wasn’t the only issue.

So, the crux of what is happening, as I see it, is that people are angry (about something, the country’s debt, bailing out corporations, etc.) and don’t know what to do, so they wail on the government, and folks like Levin, Savage, Beck and the gang are pawning their wares and playing off those frustrations like door-to-door salesmen. So, one question may be: Why don’t I share in their frustrations? Because while I am as angry that Wall Street and the corporations were bailed out as anyone else, I don’t see our government’s reaction to it as a permanent mark of things to come. We aren’t anywhere near crisis mode regarding our government. Obama will be elected, or he won’t. The talking heads will continue railing against Obama or a Republican will get elected and the vitriol will shift toward whichever progressive in Washington is trying to bring us ever out of the stone age.

But that’s enough ranting for now. Here’s something to strum your satirical lyre: